Don't be Silenced

Tag: Friendships

How do you thank someone
who stood beside you
all along
how do I tell him?
He is the sun
he shines
when everything is dark
he never runs
he stays
when everyone has gone
when I’m weak
he is strong
He never lets me give up
my song
I was ready to leave
hang up my efforts to breathe
He said no, please
I love you,
Please don’t.
You’re lovely
You’re amazing
you’re wonderful
when all the others
try to crush my soul
a little bit of me
start to feel whole

Am I finished
Have I lost who I was?
Am I gone
Was I cut up?
I don’t make sense any more
Can you see me
Am I whole?
Do you think less of me
Am I human
Do I have a soul still?
Am I shattered
Am I defiled
Am I soiled
Am I barren
Am I devastated
Have I lost my desirability?
My mojo
My zest
My attraction
My sweetness
My light?
My music

For so
Many months
I could not touch my own body
After rape
Have they bled me dry
Did he finish me?
Waste me
Did he succeed
To violate me to
Oblivion?
Space.
Am I in a graveyard
Am I gone?
Could you still
Love me like
This,
Do you, still, could
You?
Could you take me in
Your arms and
Not see the damage?
What do you see?

I said
Do you think less of me?
You said,
Because of what happened? No
If anything I think more of you.
How can this be ?
Sometimes I think
Am I charity
Am I worthy?
Can I say, I love you
Am I less?
Am I equal
Can I be?
Can I find peace after
This devastation
Am I allowed to ?
Why did I have to go through this?

A perpetrator can’t do time, no
He can leave destruction in his wake
And no one disturbs his day
He never faced prison
Did he even take a day off work?
No hospital
No examination room
No prophylactic drugs given
Too late
No waiting for results of HIV
No racking your brains for where to live safely
How to live in fear
How to avoid every man who comes near
Now that I can’t even look one in the eye
Did I die?
What about my time
Am I a whore?
Marked
Why did I go through
This punishment?
No one could save me
Why did I deserve this year of
exile to hell?
After something someone chose
To do
and silenced
Stonewalled

You, my trusted friend,
You sat there with me
Listening
When I cried
You sometimes said nothing
You believed in me
When I thought
I had already died
You held onto me when
I spoke out
I objected
That an assailant’s desires
And anger came
Before my rights
Before mine
Override everything I had.
They can take a woman
And just dismiss her
Say she wanted what he just took
Doesn’t even count that she said
No
She Is injured and devastated
Throwing up, bleeding
and she was
Celibate
Yes

You were the first one to say
“Guys who do this,
Why should it be
Kept a secret?”

You drove me
Down to the sea
Sit quietly
While I weep
All this, can you
Stomach it
Is it part of me?